Readers’ Rides - June 2013

Raymond Errthum was raised right. You see, his father owned five second-gen Camaros and passed this F-body love onto his son, who has owned four Camaros himself. As he told us, "I'm currently stationed overseas in Germany, which is way better than my previous station in Afghanistan as a Medevac crew chief. My Camaro isn't with me here because it couldn't pass inspection to get into the country, but it's at home waiting for me at my next station in Fort Campbell, Kentucky."

As for the fourth-gen, ported heads work with a port-matched FAST 92mm intake to feed the engine, while Hooker long-tube headers and a "true dual" exhaust system vacates the gases. Out back, there's a Moser 9-inch with 4.30 gears and Detroit Locker. The T56 has a Hawks Stage Two kit and the Sunset Orange SS is set up to run a 150 shot of nitrous when Raymond is in the mood.

The killer photo was nailed by Jason Swango.

2/7

Ownerhaulin'

As Phil Compton told us, "I bought my '77 Camaro coupe during my junior year of high school in 1987 for $800 dollars, but it wasn't my first choice as I had my eye on a '73 Camaro. I had one on the hook, but the owner decided to sell it to another buyer who offered him more money the very day I was going to purchase the car." As you can imagine, the $800 Camaro was fraught with worn-out parts and rust issues. "Transitioning from high school to college was not the best time to start fixing up a car. I had little money and even less time to work on the car. I had a job, but it was only enough to pay my bills, so I had to sacrifice a lot more of my labor to do the build." In 1991, after a lot of hard work and the help of some good friends, the Camaro was on the street and looking good. But then the story took a familiar turn as life piled on lots of responsibility. This meant little time to play with his car and the Camaro languished in the garage. It was almost sold several times, but thanks to a very understanding fiancé it stuck around.

Fast-forward to 2006. The Camaro was now a shadow of its former self. Rust had returned and the car needed a complete makeover. Well, that's what it got with Phil doing almost all the work, including paint. Much of the sheetmetal was replaced and the paint is a black base with a stripe done in silver with a Flame Red base coat. The drivetrain is a hopped-up 355 small-block backed by a built TH350 trans. Eibach springs dropped the stance while their sway bars, teamed with KYB shocks, controls the lean. For rollers he went with 18-inch Torq-Thrust IIs wrapped in Nitto rubber.

Not many of us can say we still have the dream car from our youth, but Phil is one who happily can.

3/7

Retired Cop Car

Scott Liska's '92 B4C Camaro has certainly been around. As he told us, "The car started out with the New York State Police, serving from 1992 to 1995 and, after two other owners, I purchased it on eBay in 2005. My wife and I flew out to Boston to pick it up (sight unseen) and drove it back to Denver, Colorado. My goal for the car was to maintain the clean appearance of the RS package, but upgrade the engine, transmission, and suspension."

4/7

The Camaro still rocks the original block, but it's been punched out to 383 ci, filled with forged internals, and topped off with AFR heads. Backing it up is a transmission beefed up to handle the 346 rear-wheel hp and 429 lb-ft of twist. Finishing out the driveline is a 3.5-inch aluminum driveshaft and the GM rear with 3.73 gears along with stronger Yukon axles. The suspension was upgraded with afternarket rear control arms, subframe connectors, and an adjustable Panhard rod. Even at nearly 6,000 feet of elevation the Camaro still runs a traction-limited 14.1 at 98 mph!

5/7

Transformation

A lot of guys buy new Camaros with the intent to leave them stock. Shane Ocompo knew that wasn't gonna happen. "When I first saw this car, I knew that it was the right car for me. I fell in love and started imagining all the things that I was going to do with it!" To keep the pain to a minimum, Shane set a tight three-month schedule to do all of his mods. He also wanted to make sure that the integrity of the '12 Transformers special edition was kept. The parts list includes names like Injen, MagnaFlow, Eibach, Defenderworx, Pfadt, and Brembo. The Camaro gets tons of looks cruising around town and Shane's next, and allegedly last, upgrade will be a supercharger. Yeah, we've heard that before.

6/7

Tricky Nickey

This is Tony Drost's second Nickey Camaro and it's completely badass. "I chose Nickey because of the history. As you know, Nickey Chevrolet had a lot to do with the COPOs and ZL1 Camaros produced in '69. They were the first to make a 427 available in '67 and eventually Fred Gibb took it from there. To date, Nickey Chicago has made the only official Fred Gibb and Yenko fifth-gen Camaros. I was pretty honored to get their first production fifth-gen ZL1 Camaro."

To top it off, Tony lives in Boise, Idaho, so his ride really stands out in the crowd. The worked-over powerplant makes 841 hp and 708 lb-ft of torque, which is quite a bit more than it did straight from GM. Part of this is due to the stainless Kooks long-tubes, and the rest is engine massaging along with a Nickey Stage II cam. A smaller blower pulley ups the boost and an eight-rib serpentine system stops slip. It all makes for a killer car that lives up to its heritage.